2,900 police officers have been cut in London since May 2010, according to new figures released by the Metropolitan Police. Since his re-election in May 2012, Boris Johnson has also cut over 1,300 police officers - despite promising an extra 1,000, the figures show.
“I do think that it is important to keep Police numbers high…It is something that not everybody necessarily agrees with me about. A lot of people say that the numbers themselves do not matter. I think that they do matter. I think that it is important that we keep them at or around 32,000.” – Boris Johnson, September 2012, Mayor’s question time.
2,900 police officers have been cut in London since May 2010, according to new figures released by the Metropolitan Police.
Since his re-election in May 2012, Boris Johnson has also cut over 1,300 police officers – despite promising an extra 1,000, the figures show.
The graphs below the drop in police officers for the whole of London (graph 1), the drop in borough-based police officers (graph 2) and the drop for Police Community Support Officers (PCSO).
The increase in 2008-09 was a result of funding increases by Ken Livingstone. The number of serving police officers has fallen off a cliff edge since then.
London Assembly Labour police and crime spokesperson, Joanne McCartney AM, said that “hollowing out the frontline” could not continue.
“Some boroughs have lost significant numbers of officers, in Camden 160 police officers have been lost, in Southwark it’s 159, Lambeth 230 and Westminster have lost 259 officers. These cuts are completely unacceptable,” she said.
One Response to “(Graph) Police numbers in London have fallen off a cliff edge since Boris became Mayor”
David Walker
I’m wondering about the logic of this argument.
a) any given level of Met policing pre Boris is ipso facto good therefore b) cuts in that number are damaging to …what (public safety, crime levels, perceptions of good order)?
Doing tactical politics is fine – eg holding Boris actions up against statements and promises. But there’s a question also of evidence, about the relationship between policing and social benefits (wellbeing, offences etc), and it’s complex and ambiguous. It certainly doesn’t support any straightforward connexion between police strength and crime, for example. And then there’s the matter of distinguishing between crimes. Say we traded off constables against tax inspectors’ assistants – where would a left of centre calculus lead us? We can’t be defend a numerical status quo for the Met…